Archive for April, 2011

Job: FriendsArtform: Just being normalPaid?: Paid in love, and the occasional round of drinksLocation: London (and also on all major social networking sites)

Following an exhausting period of time where all of my friends have been extremely angry about cuts to the Arts Council, and government policy in general, I’m looking for a whole new social circle that are a bit – you know – less pissed off.

I haven’t actually done any theatre since university, and I feel like my artsy friends and I went through some really great times together, but I don’t think talking to me about Arts Council cuts will do any good.

For a start, I have a day-job in Millets, selling tents and hiking boots and other outdoorsy-type stuff. I’m a pretty understanding guy, and I admit that some of the government’s actions seem a little ideological, but jeez, guys, you’ve got to lighten up.

My friend Jeff signed my birthday card with the legend “Good luck making it to the next birthday without any THEATRE”, and I was trying to have a nice quiet pint with Nicola, but she couldn’t stop breathlessly calling George Osborne unspeakably crude names and tearing a napkin into really small pieces. I sympathise with their friends losing their jobs, and there being less money around to fund another bloody PLAY I have to go to, but seriously, do they have to be such dicks about it?

I’m looking for a whole new social circle to replace the one I have at the moment. Perhaps where we can have a nice drink or a picnic on a Sunday, without Martin insisting we all go and occupy a tax-dodging shop and do a bit of agit-prop theatre.

And I’d also like a Twitter feed that isn’t relentlessly depressing. Maybe it just contains tweets about football, or what happened on Britain’s Got Talent… I’m pretty sure Sarah’s Facebook wall used to be about funny pictures of rabbits and cool graffiti she had seen, and that was quite enjoyable; now she just posts up extracts of Johann Hari articles, and then links through to the same Johann Hari articles. It’s just a bit of a drag.

I welcome applications from people who like throwing a frisbee, those who are excited about the Royal Wedding, and moderately attractive girls who might have sex with me even though I don’t know the UK’s National Debt as a percentage of GDP.

Following the withdrawal of our regular arts funding, we’re looking for two almost-superhuman actors to form the entire cast for our production of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

When it became apparent that our funding was not as secure as we had previously believed, we blithely insisted that our production schedule would continue as previously arranged, and it is only now that we are beginning to realise the ramifications of this as we attempt to stage the 1954 musical celebration of multiple nuptials with a cast of only two people.

We are therefore looking for two exceptionally fit actors, as they will have to do a lot of running around. We don’t want actors keeling over as the demands of re-enacting the original’s gruelling dance scenes fall not upon fourteen teenagers, but two senior citizens from the Indian subcontinent.

For, lest we forget to mention, our sole remaining funding comes from the Laxmishanker G. Pathak Foundation, whose mission is to encourage artistic participation by ‘citizens of the third age’ from a Gujarati background. We are eternally grateful to the LG Pathak Foundation for sticking by us, and it is to our great discredit that we did not consider the paucity of roles for Gujarati senior citizens in the romantic musical tale of Oregonian backwoodsmen and their brides.

Nevertheless, we plough on regardless, resting on the ever-benevolent arms of the Theatrical Fates, and we are certain that there must be – there must be – actors out there with the internal constitution, acting ability, and proud Indian heritage to take on seven roles each and sing rousing versions of “Sobbin’ Women” and “Lonesome Polecat”.

Please get in touch. Without the two of you, our epic musical vision shall be yet another scalp claimed by this disastrous turn in Arts Council funding, and our short-sighted press release insisting that we would carry on come-what-may will indeed be the final nail in the coffin for our theatrical ambition.

Oh supreme one, help me in my direst hour, as I open the Guildford Advertiser to see what they thought of my production of Alan Ayckbourn’s “Bedroom Farce” at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.

Sitting here in my favourite breakfast cafe, may I figuratively pat your noble belly and ask that the Guildford Advertiser overlook Jessica’s hamminess? Yes, her interpretation of Delia is a little… bold, but as you know, the beautiful teaching of anitya tells us that all things that come to be have an end, and our production of Bedroom Farce has one heck of a curtain call.

For, oh Buddha, I do not come into this state of enlightenment with this unopened copy of the Guildford Advertiser thinking that I have achieved an unconstructed dimension of awareness with this production of Ayckbourn’s play. We have had our share of production problems, including a poorly put-together bed which almost disintegrated under Trevor and Jan. Nevermind “nirvana”, we “nirly didn’t make press night” – what with Gregory’s indiscretion about Fiona’s friend’s gastric band.

So, as I open this newspaper, I am contemplating upon the Four Noble Truths which tell us that suffering is an ingrained part of existence. And, just as Susannah must live life knowing the weight of Trevor’s indiscretion, so must I bear the new weight if the Guildford Advertiser recognise the reused costumes from last June’s modern-dress Henry V. And I must also remember that suffering can be ended, especially if I blank that hack critic at the Guildford Advertiser Christmas party.

And if not, may the eggs and bacon of this breakfast cafe be the meal (like yours from Cunda the blacksmith) which carries me to Parinirvana, and saves me from Tuesday’s edition of the Guildford Times.

That’s what we thought to ourselves when we heard of all of the money being taken from theatre and given to BANKERS who put it in their basements like Scrooge McDuck and then swim around in it. “Let’s make some theatre!” is what we thought because even though it might be counter-incongruous to do that, that is what we DO in our careers as professional ARTISANS.

So Jonty has written a play called “All In This Together?” and the question mark is really important because – reading between the lines – he thinks we are not all in this together. YEAH! Take that, Mr McDuck OBE!

And now we’re looking for some corporate funding, both because we need funds for acting shoes, etc, but also as a VERY CLEVER double layer of clever.

You see, if our show is all about how corporate funding is never going to be an adequate replacement for arts council funding, and we then have corporate funding ourselves, it’s like we’re attacking The Man TWICE. It’s like our theatre sword is a double-edged sword. A double-edged sword of theatre. Where one edge is satirical, making the Fat Cats realise how fat (and also feline) they are, and where the other edge is sharp, like a sword, and purely practical because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to rent the Redgrave Theatre in Clifton.

So we are looking for a corporate funder who is also a bit gullible.

Incidentally, did you know that the word “gullible” has been removed from the dictionary? It has. It definitely has.

Please apply with details of your enormous wealth, and also the length of time it took you to realise that the word “gullible” hasn’t actually been removed from the dictionary, and that that was a test to see whether you are gullible or not (a long time is better).

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